Founding Director

Dr Rupy Aujla is the NHS GP who started www.thedoctorskitchen.com A project to inspire patients about the beauty of food and the medicinal effects of eating well.

Not only does he create delicious recipes on his website and social media channels including Instagram, Facebook and YouTube – but Dr Aujla also talks about the amazing clinical research behind the ingredients he uses. He also has a best-selling cookbook – ‘The Doctor’s Kitchen’ – published by Harper Collins.

In his role as clinical adviser to the Royal College of GP’s and more recently being accepted as a fellow on the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme – Dr Aujla has big aspirations to bring the concept of ‘Culinary Medicine’ to the profession globally.

He is also the founder of ‘Culinary Medicine’ – a non-profit organisation which aims to teach doctors and medical students the foundations of nutrition as well as teaching them how to cook.

BSc (Hons) PGCE RD MAcadMEd | CMUK Nutrition lead and Director

Elaine currently works for Brighton and Sussex Medical School as a Nutrition Medical Educator integrating nutrition into the curriculum. She maintains a clinical role as a Registered Dietitian, specialising in diabetes in pregnancy and is also the nutrition lead and education director for Culinary Medicine UK.

In addition, she is the Allied Health Professional lead for NNedPro Global Centre for Nutrition and Health and an executive member of both the Global Innovation Panel and the Faculty and Mentors Panel contributing to international research and education to improve nutrition education across the globe.

She has a distinction PGCE in Medical Education and is a member of the Academy of Medical Educators (MAcadMEd). She is currently studying for her MSc Med Ed, researching gaps in nutrition education from the perspective of medical students and junior doctors. With a career spanning over 20 years, a BSc (hons) in Nutrition and Dietetics and postgraduate qualifications in diabetes, research, critical appraisal, behaviour change and communication Elaine has worked in many areas of clinical nutrition and strives for both excellence and innovation as an educator and mentor. She is a member of the British Dietetic Association, Diabetes UK, the Association of Medical Educators and is regulated by the Health and Care Professions Council.

Elaine is passionate about the need for collaboration and communication across professions to scale up nutrition education to help prevent and treat chronic disease and to advocate for better access to healthy affordable food for all.

MBBS BSc DFSRH DRCOG MRCGP PGCert (Merit) | Operational Lead and Secretary

Dr Baruah graduated from University College London. She holds diplomas in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Sexual Health and a Postgraduate Certificate in Primary Care Education. She completed her membership with the Royal College of General Practice in 2011 and has worked in both the public and private sector.

She is currently a portfolio GP, working as a GP Partner and Trainer in a large South London practice. Dr Baruah is a certified Health Coach with the European Mentoring and Coaching Council. In her LMC representative role, she worked with the department of Public Health this year to win a British Heart Foundation grant for development of an innovative system to detect and prevent hypertension through lifestyle changes for Greenwich residents. Dr Baruah is interested in teaching health care professionals and patients about how to utilise lifestyle for better health outcomes. She is passionate about empowering patients and as a certified health coach uses various tools to help with areas from goal setting to behaviour change. As a director of Culinary Medicine UK, she hopes to help patients make better choices with their diet and improve disease outcomes.

MBBS BSc (Hons) AIMC | Treasurer and Director

Dr Abhinav Bhansali graduated from Imperial College school of medicine where he also secured a first class honours in healthcare management. He went on to work for Candesic, a boutique healthcare consulting firm, to further develop his project management skills. In 2016 he helped develop plans for the first of its kind, state of the art wellness center. Currently, he works as a clinical fellow at St Georges hospital and has previously also worked as a regional clinical supervisor to Cambridge medical undergraduates. Dr Bhansali strongly believes that our current attitude towards health needs to change. He believes that driving forward innovations like culinary medicine will help shape the change in population lifestyle needed to curb the burden of multi-morbidity.

Research Lead

Dr Sharma graduated from the University of Glasgow with both medical and bachelor of science (BSc Parasitology) degrees. She is trainee in infectious diseases and microbiology and is currently a senior registrar at Great Ormond Street Hospital, London.

She has been a member of the Royal College of Physicians since 2009 and is currently working towards Fellowship of the Royal College of Pathologists. She holds a Masters degree in public health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a certificate in Global Health from the University of Manchester. She has completed Leadership and Management training with University College London Partners, where she won a prize for innovation in healthcare Leadership. She sees improving nutrition across the board as a global health challenge and would like to see positive change in both primary and secondary healthcare settings. She is as passionate about public health in practice as she is about the emerging science around nutrition, such as that related to the gut microbiome. As research director, Dr Sharma monitors and evaluates the culinary medicine courses by collating prospective data and feedback from participants. This continually improves the quality of courses offered allowing CMUK to pursue excellence at every stage.

PhD MRes MSc BSc (Hons) | Research Lead

Dr Katie Parker holds a PhD in Experimental Psychology from University College London and Master’s degrees in Sport and Human Performance Psychology and Human-Computer Interaction. Dr Parker has a specialist interest in consumer judgment and choice and health behaviour change.

Her unique approach to supporting judgment and choice performance across business, financial and health contexts, involves combining elements from elite sport performance with user research and online choice behaviours to deliver effective assessment measures, behaviour change mechanisms and design recommendations.

Dr Parker is the director of operations for Hexis, a digital behaviour change platform delivering performance nutrition and lifestyle interventions for the elite sport and corporate sectors and a director of research for Culinary Medicine UK. Dr Parker also works within the UCL Institute of Education as a research educator and mentor on the UCL EDUCATE Programm, teaching research and entrepreneurship skills to start-ups in the educational technology sector.